Free will
If our behaviour is determined by our genes, family, culture, environment, society, and the interaction of all of these, where exactly is our free will?
What do you think are the consequences of believing in free ill, or not believing in free will?
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.You have the free will to follow your instincts or go in a different direction. You can be the exact example of a stereotype or break the mold. I do not always act like a sailor, an american, a Puertorican or anything else I may had look up to. I am my own self and I will act accordingly.
GipsyOfNewSpain
Level 9
Jan 14, 2018
0
Do you really have the free will to follow your instinct? Is there anything that you have to know about instinct, the benefit of that, the way to do it and so on? Did you have the free will to REACH that point?
@Profile I hope you don't mind for me exercising my free will to ignore you at this moment.
@GipsyOfNewSpain the fact you ignore me is also something that you are capable to do it, not because you want to. but because you can not do it other way, at this moment.
No other creature spend 20% of its existence in a classroom learning how to be itself. Those who maintain free will are very often ostracised by society and spend great swathes of time alone, developing ideas and technologies that benefit all of humanity. Go figure.
Sawney_Mor
Level 4
Jan 14, 2018
0
Usually religion punish you for your indecent, criminal, imoral acts. And its doing so because consider that you had the free will to do what you did. Free will its very sustained by religion. The justice system punish you for acts done by your own will. Its much easier to punish and condemn, to judge and hate if you consider free will real.
The illusion of free will is there. You may believe when you deliberate something in your head and arrive at a decision, you're exercising free will but it's just unawareness of the processes underpinning that event over which you have no control. You're not the master of the machine, you are the machine.
IntellectualRN
Level 6
Jan 14, 2018
1
If we accept behaviour (what we do) is a function of attitude and environment, and consider that our attitude is part nurture (upbringing) and part nature (genetics) and environment being all the external factors it may seem that freewill does not exist. However, we are all different, we all have different opinions etc even if based on the above, and free will is us giving evidence of this to the world. I still say free will, even though it seems pre conditioned.
Rugglesby
Level 8
Jan 14, 2018
1
Can you give an example when you think, there should be a free will?
@Profile I would like to think there could be more free will . Take my situation, I choose not to participate in corporate greed, I left that world behind in 1988, 30 years ago on the 12th of May. Since then I have only ever worked for the not for profit sector, largely doing things I believe in. Also during that time I have had periods where I have not worked, by choice, to work on unpaid things, like building a house, raising kids and so forth. My choices, but in line with my beliefs which have been shaped in reaction to the world around me
@Rugglesby there are many people who are in the same situation you were (participating in a corporate greed), they continue to do that? have you ever thought that maybe you just had that opportunity to change because you were predisposed by, again, what your genes allowed you to perceive from the world, the way your environment shaped you and so on? Do you think that the way people are CAPABLE to CHANGE opinion, CAPABLE to CHANGE their life path, is not also a result of something they were influenced to, have that capacity to do so? Is the capacity to react in certain way in certain situation not also a predisposed action?
@Profile Pretty much what I think, my dna, my background including education and life experiences predisposed me to take the route I took, but the DNA/background combination is ME. So is free will the ability to choose what I would do or is it denied by the forces that made me who/what I am that I would make those choices. Simplified I guess, am I programmed?
I've said this before on other lists, but I am a big believer in pre-dispositions. Environmental stimulants can trigger any of our predispositions, so we make decisions based on the combination of internal and external triggers. Instinct, learned behavior, etc. are all combined in decision making or "free will."
If you don't believe you are responsible for your own decisions-- you can blame all of your actions on others or a "magical being". This doesn't allow for accountability. This is some of the biggest hypocritical crap I see from religious people-- if something good happens then it was God that brought it into their lives, if it was something bad...then God must have had a good reason or the person just wasn't faithful enough.
ksmartines
Level 6
Jan 14, 2018
2
well said.
Your second paragraph: "If you don't believe you are responsible for your decision", its about determinism, what you believe in, therefore you have the right to blame on others, on parents, on society, on your genes. Religion BELIEVE that you are responsible for your acts (free will), therefore punishment is justifiable.
What you are talking about, is the circumstances that happen to you, but I am talking about what YOU are doing to yourself and to others.
I believe that the only responsibility that exist is the responsibility of society to recognize determinism as real and prevent certain behaviours.
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